Martin's big hit set up by Yanks' long first

BOSTON -- The big hit in Thursday night's 4-2 Yankees win over the Red Sox undoubtedly was Russell Martin's go-ahead two-run double in the seventh inning.

The seeds of that moment, however, were planted six innings earlier. The Yankees forced Red Sox starter Jon Lester to throw 43 pitches in the first inning, when they scored a run on three hits and a walk and left the bases loaded as Lester struck out the side.

Even though the big hit eluded them against Lester, the Yankees got him out of the game after five innings and 114 pitches with Boston leading 2-1 on the strength of Dustin Pedroia's two-run home run off A.J. Burnett in the fourth.

"The biggest thing on those guys is you're not planning on scoring a gang of runs on them," Martin said. "All you can do is just battle against them. What we did today is we got his pitch count up and then he was out of there early. We had a ton of at-bats where it seemed we were going to 3-2 every at-bat."

Like the Yankees, the Red Sox have a good bullpen -- but no team has a bullpen that can be expected to hold a one-run lead with four innings to go every time.

Former Yankee Alfredo Aceves relieved Lester and worked a scoreless sixth despite allowing four baserunners (Eduardo Nuñez's double- play ball helped out Aceves, who then left the bases loaded by getting Robinson Cano to ground out to end the inning).

In the seventh, Aceves issued a one-out walk to Andruw Jones and hit rookie Jesus Montero in the uniform shirt with a pitch. Red Sox manager Terry Francona called on eighth-inning guy Daniel Bard early, but the strategy failed when Martin rifled a 97-mph fastball to the wall in right-center for a double, two runs and a 3-2 Yankees lead.

Martin, who fell behind 0-and-2 before working the count full, has eight RBIs in 10 games against the Red Sox.

"He had gotten me with two sliders, so I kind of had that in the back of my mind," Martin said. "He didn't make any really quality pitches after 0-2 . . . He got in a situation where he didn't want to walk me, so he threw a fastball over and I put a good swing on it."

Martin took third as the Red Sox tried in vain to get Montero at the plate. Eric Chavez followed with a single to right past a drawn-in infield and the Yankees had the two-run lead they would nurse for three innings with their late-inning relief team of Rafael Soriano, David Robertson and Mariano Rivera (36th save).

Martin missed the first two games of this series with a bruised left thumb suffered Sunday in Baltimore. He was replaced by Francisco Cervelli, who ignited a mini-firestorm on Tuesday when he clapped at home plate after hitting a home run off John Lackey.

Cervelli is known to be an excitable player, but Martin usually is more low-key. Not Thursday night. He clapped repeatedly after reaching third base on his go-ahead double as many Yankees players came out of the third-base dugout to cheer him.

Martin also displayed emotion after Rivera struck out Adrian Gonzalez looking to end the game with the bases loaded. Martin pumped his first after catching the strike as Gonzalez spread out his arms in disbelief at the call.